Shown here is part of the crowd that attended the Slavic Folk
Art Exhibition at its opening in Toronto lact month. At right is one
of the hundreds og exhibits, a wood carving from the Moscow region
f the Soviet Union. :

Slavic Folk Art Exhibition

wins praise ocross country

‘HE Exhibition of Slavic Folk
Art and Handicrafts, which
has enjoyed great success in sev-
eral Canadian cities, will open
here at a hall not decided upon
at Pacific Tribune press time, on
Wednesday, January 5, and con-
tinue until Saturday, January 8.

When the exhibition visited Re-
gina this month it was officially
opened by Mayor Leslie Ham-
mond. Also attending were
Premier T. C. Douglas and Labor
Minister C. C. Williams.

People travelled as far as 150
miles to Moose Jaw when the ex-
hibition visited that city. Handi-
craft guild members, teachers,
lawyers, doctors, workers, prom-
inent business men and young
people turned out to view and
applaud the remarkable display
of exhibits.

The Regina Leader-Post report
on the exhibition said,:in part:

“Gleaming black polished
_ lacquer from the village of Fedo-
skin formed an outstanding part

of the Byelorussia and Russia’

Misplay, 274s .

“Bone work in mammoth and
walrus tusk from northern Rus-
sia were fashioned in delicately
carved brooches, buttons e,bars,
partridges, foxes and reindeer
in harness. —

“Walls of the hall were divid-
ed into the Slavie country dis-

plays. Spotlights were installed
to bring out the coior and beauty
of the exhibition.

“Four pairs of dolls, male and
female, from different parts: of
Poland were highlights of the
Polish section. These dolls had
leather faces and hands in which
the microscopic stitching was
barely visible.

“Handmade cut-glass was dis-
played on black velvet in the
Czechoslovak display. . . .

“In the Yugoslav section hand-
woven carpets were displayed. A
handwoven coverlet had an inter-
esting cross-stitch design... .

“Rugs in lovely tones and de-
signs were outstanding in the
Bulgaria display. Wood carvings
included: miniature table sets... .

SAAR EE AER ORAS LE AAA A SSA EASA SAAR

SEASON’S GREETINGS
UNIVERSAL NEWSSTAND
112 EAST HASTINGS ST,

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“Highlights of the Ukraine dis-
play were the cross-stitched em-

broidery and wood _ carvings.
Prominent were the shirts and
towels, in various patterns and
combinations including gold

woven thread work. There was a

Canadian scene of a homestead
created with birchbark. Complete
man’s and woman’s costumes
from Kiev region were included,”
The tour, sponsored by the
Canadian Slav Committee, is un-
der the direction of William Ma-
lynchuk of Montreal. -

Folk song collection
fills long - felt need

| appa have a heritage of
folk music as rich as any, and
Folk Songs of Canada (obtain-
able in Vancouver at the People’s

_ Cooperative Bookstore, 337 West

Pender, price $5.20) makes that
heritage more accessible to us.

In this collection of songs are
some brought centuries ago by
the settlers from France, Ireland,
and Scotland, some native to our
soil, some whose melodies are
from the old countries with words
adapted to tell of life in the new
land. The seventy-seven songs
presented by the editors, Edith
Fulton Fowke and Richard John-
ston, are well chosen, represent-
ing mainly French and English.
Although one Indian and one
Eskimo song have been included,
this is scarcely a token acknow-
ledgement of the wealth of beauti-
ful and singable melodies coming
to us from the original inhabi-
tants of Canada.

The National Museum, through
Dr. Marius Barbeau and others,
has done extensive work in col-
lecting such songs and they are
readily available at the Museum
in’ Ottawa. Many more of these
songs should have been included

in this anthology.

The authors say that the In-
dian and Eskimo songs have limit-
ed general appeal. That may be
so, but it is in just such a book

as this that these songs should .

appear so that they may be
brought to the attention of all

who are interested in folk songs.

Often, songs may not have im-
mediate appeal but on second or
third hearing, their own peculiar
beauty is discovered.
ye

The French songs presented in-
clude such familiar ones as “A
La Claire Fontaine,” “Allouette,”
“D’ou Viens Tu Bergere?” and
“Viva la Canadienne.” There
are, of course, others perhaps not
so well known outside of Quebec
such as “A Saint Malo,” “Dans
les Chantiers,” “Bonhomme! Bon-
homme!”

Most of the English songs in
the book are from the east, among

them “The Farmer’s Cursed
Wife,” “The Quaker’s Courtship,”
“Jack Was Every Inch a Sailor.”
‘The Kelligrews’ Soiree.” ‘
There are a few from the west
such as “The Red River Valley,”
The Tenderfoot,” “The Straw-
berry Roan,” “When the Ice
Worms Nest Again” and “There
Was Blood on the Saddle.”
However, there has not been
nearly enough research done in
the Provinces west of Quebec, for
anything other than Indian songs.
Surely- the pioneers of the
prairie provinces sang of their
land clearing for their home-
steads, or as they gathered the
harvest in the fall. Surely the

_ railway builders, the loggers and

the fishermen of the west sang of
the toil and hardship and the joy
of accomplishment as their labors
bore fruit. . :

And what of the songs of the
national groups in Canada? Sure-
ly they too have a place in an
anthology of Canadian song.

xt es

The collection contains songs
of the past, of the sea, the woods,
paddling songs, nonsense songs,
each in some way ‘Canadian,
whether originating here or hav-
ing been brought here and sung
so frequently as to have become
Canadian. The translations from
French to English are among the
best to have appeared so far,

The music, arranged for piano
or guitar, is tastefully done, so
that it retains the simplicity of
ny pees and is yet unobtru-

ve, an e notes
are well done, aoa
tive, .
_ The cov.
it looks rather

the contents,
Within this ublicati
Peake OE lication can be
national music.
resent more tha
Folk Songs of

These songs rep-
n an heirloom,
Canada is a good
book and a long-awaited must for

people who like to sing.

Gwyn Thomas disappointing
in latest of his Welsh novels

is with a very special feeling
of anticipation that one opens
a new novel by Gwyn Thomas. Is
this going to be the one? Is this
going to be the book, the master-

“piece, the seeds of which could

be seen so plainly in Dark Phil-
osophers and Venus and the

Voters? So it was with his latest

book, The Stranger at My Side,
(obtainable in Vancouver at the
People’s Cooperative Bookstore,
337 West Pender, price $2.50) but
alas, that promise is as yet un-
fulfilled, some six years and as
many books later.

Indeed,
where the early books left off, the
author seems almost to be satir-
izing them. '

The bitter irony has become
blunted, the down to earthness
which characterized the earlier
“voters” has almost vanished,
and only. the fantasy is left, so

_ they appear as half men, unreal
people, who live still in the de- ~

pression years.

So real were his early charac-
ter,s, so rooted in their Welsh
valley, that one wanted to see
them grow, to see how they react-
ed to changing social conditions,
to see how their children turned
Olt f

far from. going on

Some of these children we saw,
to be sure, sympathetically and
humorously depicted in A Frost
on My Frolic, but there Gwyn
Thomas has left tiem and return-

ed in his latest book to the pre-
war years: :

The characters in The Stranger
at My Side have become little
more than pegs on which to hang
humorous situations and there
are too few of the flashes of the
penetrating comment we have
come to expect from the author.
They are isolated characters,
comical, humorous, yes, but lost
in the sense that they are no

longer rooted in their social en-

vironment: |

There are, of course, richly hu-
morous scenes in The Stranger
at My Side, although too often
these border perilously upon
farce. There is still that marvel-
lous richness of imagery, that
wizardry of the English language,
but that too, is almost too much
— one feels at times as though
the author had become intoxicat-
ed with his own verbal dexterity
and luxuriant imagination.

It is quite difficult to see what
the story is trying to say.

_ earnestness

In essence it deals with the
struggles of various characters
to try to “beat the system” by
going into business for them-

selves as exceedingly inept paint-

ers and decorators, and the temp-
orary conversion of the old radi-
cal Uncle Edwin into a go-getting
“free enterpriser’ under the er-
ratic guidance of Theo Morgan,
“a fierce enemy of dedicated
in any shape or
form.”

By the time they have fallen,
off all the ladders in the neigh-
borhood and been chased out of
the tabernacle by the preacher,
Uncle Edwin is ready to return
to his Discussion Circle and Theo.
Morgan is considerably chastened
by his fall from a scaffold and the -
consequent concussion. Thus we —
are back where we started.

The book shows signs of hasty
writing — in one or two places
explanations are repeated almost _
word for word—so perhaps one
ean hope from this that Thomas
himself does not regard A Stran-
ger at My Side too seriously and —
that he will soon produce the
book for which we have been |
waiting. eee:

| —-ROSALEEN ROSS.
PACIFIC TRIBUNE — DECEMBER 24, 1954 — PAGE 8

the seeds of our

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